


The Forgotten War

by DoctorTrekLock



Series: Resolution19 [47]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Hellmouths, Magic, Off-screen Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 07:37:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21316555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorTrekLock/pseuds/DoctorTrekLock
Summary: Amaranth was on her way back to the house, a basket full of berries in her arms, singing wordlessly to the treetops, when she saw the first traces of smoke. Her family's home was burning, and her family with it.She sobbed and screamed until her voice gave out.The memory of her family's destruction fades, growing hazier and hazier by the second. The crisp details that had haunted her vanishes as a huge plume of flame shoots out of the sky toward her nemesis. Amaranth laughs.
Series: Resolution19 [47]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1275806
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Forgotten War

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: You live in a world where magic exists, however, you must sacrifice a memory in order to cast a spell. The more memories, or the more precious a memory, the more powerful the magic. You just woke up with no memory save a name.  
Source: <https://doctortreklock.tumblr.com/post/156585965282/writing-prompt-s-you-live-in-a-world-where-magic>
> 
> Originally posted November 4, 2019 on [Tumblr](https://doctortreklock.tumblr.com/post/188823508267/the-forgotten-war-november-4-2019)

_When Amaranth was seven, she wanted to be a weaver when she grew up._

_Then, four days before her birthday, her mother had sent her into the woods to hunt for berries. She had gone willingly, sure that her mother was using the time to put the finishing touches on her birthday cake, complete with strawberries. Today was the last day her father would be home before he and her older brother would head into the city with a load of fresh produce to bring back extra help. It looked like it would be a bumper crop this year for wheat, and her family wouldn't be able to bring in the grain alone._

_Amaranth was on her way back to the house, a basket full of berries in her arms, singing wordlessly to the treetops, when she saw the first traces of smoke._

_Her eyes followed the trail in horror as it became heavy, dark plumes. She dropped the basket her mother had woven and dashed down path as quickly as she could, but the best berry-picking fields were far from her homestead and she knew she was too late. The smoke filled half of the sky by the time she reached the edge of the trees. The smoke stung at her eyes and curled in her lungs, but the thick, black smoke wasn't the reason tears were streaming down her face. She cried aloud for her mother, her father, and her brother Caudat._

_The fields had burned nearly to ash and the house that Amaranth had hoped housed her strawberry birthday cake was a crumbled wreck of charcoal._

_She sobbed and screamed until her voice gave out and she collapsed._

The memory of her family's destruction fades, growing hazier and hazier by the second. The crisp details that had haunted her vanishes as a huge plume of flame shoots out of the sky toward her nemesis.

Senara curses and dodges the blast, rolling behind a large piece of rubble from the last shockwave Amaranth had sent her way.

"Wait!" she cries. "Amaranth, _please_. You don’t have to do this!"

Amaranth just laughs, and it doesn't fall in peals of laughter so much as cackles, dripping from her mouth to pool on the uneven, rocky surface. "You don't understand," she gasps through ragged breaths. "I _do_."

"Why?" Senara shouts, desperately.

Amaranth just laughs again, and throws another fireball. As she does so, the memory of Caudat teaching her how to whistle with blades of grass fades from her memory.

She doesn't tell Senara that she doesn't remember _why_ anymore. She doesn't let on that the gaps in her memory have grown and spread like an infestation, rotten to the core. She doesn't reveal that she's forgotten so much of her life - doesn't hint that so much of her history has turned to ash and rubble - that all she can remember now is diagrams in spellbooks, a wizened hand on her arm, and a few tattered memories that haven't yet been used as fuel.

Oh, and an image of a giant painting of a hellgate, complete with dark figures emerging in the flickering firelight. But Amaranth thinks of that less as a _memory_ and more of a _consequence_.

The ground before her has been swept clean of debris by the memory of her mother braiding her hair and singing softly. Senara gets to her feet on the opposite side of the clearing and steadies herself.

Amaranth has a handful of memories left with Senara in them. The heroine had been a member of the local heroes' guild with a few successful adventures under her belt. She doesn't remember exactly how she met Senara, but she does remember a moment in a destroyed city, the two catching each others' eye across the ruins, just before Amaranth had decimated the rest of Senara's guild.

The warrior had apparently not taken that well, as Amaranth can recall a half-dozen other brief memories of facing Senara in battle. She doesn't remember how Senara survived each encounter, though, and Amaranth is beginning to regret whatever impulse had made her burn those specific memories.

No matter. If her past has failed her, she will simply have to invent the future on the spot. She loses her father's laughter and the sardonic tilt of Senara's mouth. In exchange, she gets a localized earthquake and another jet of fire. The combination is enough to throw Senara off balance, and she cries out in pain as the flames lick across her simple armor.

The clouds shift, and a shaft of sunlight falls across the cleared area in the center of what was once a thriving town square. It is time.

Before Senara can recover, Amaranth loses the honey brown of Senara's eyes and hears a scream echo around the clearing in return.

The ruins fall silent.

Amaranth calls to mind the clear memory of a circle, with neat runes ringing the edge, memorized from a spellbook long destroyed. She steps neatly into the clearing and begins to pace around it counter-clockwise, memorized syllables falling from her lips as sygils etch themselves in the packed earth. She ignores the rubble around her as her last memories falter and fade.

Her father. Her mother. Caudat. The wheat fields where she grew up. A dark-haired warrior woman. …herself.

She walks steadily, losing time in the steady pace of her feet, in the steady murmur of forgotten words.

The earth crumbles.

…………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………

…………………………

…………………………………………………

The ground trembles.

A woman throws a hand out to her side as a brace and feels the earth rumble beneath her palm. She chokes on sulfur and tries to breathe the hot air billowing around her.

She pushes herself high enough to look around through the dark haze and sees ruins. Carved stones that look as if they might have once been columns, but are now lying shattered on the ground. Bodies visible at a distance, and one charred corpse a dozen feet from her with what looks like leather armor. She looks away quickly.

Oh! She hadn't noticed before, but now it seems impossible to have missed it. A giant chasm begins a scant few inches from her fingertips. From it billows the dark, sulfurous smoke that surrounds her, and she can hear the faintest hint of demonic cackling from its depths.

She scrambles to her feet as quickly as she can and backs away from the abyss. Oh, it must be the very mouth of hell itself!

She pauses for a moment, a thought cutting through the panic. How does she know it must be the mouth of hell? What else did she know? Not much, she realized after a moment of poking through her memories. Nothing, in fact, except the peculiar knowledge of a hellmouth. And a name, which must be hers: _Senara_.

It doesn't seem right for a moment, but then it does, and Senara nods for a moment to herself in recognition of that singular fact.

"Right," she says aloud. "I suppose this will need to be dealt with." She contemplates the hellmouth for a brief minute, her hands on her hips, ignoring the sulfur and chortling as best as she can.

From the brief glimpse she got earlier, it didn't look like there were any other survivors of whatever horrific event had occurred here. Now, keeping one eye on the hellmouth, Senara starts picking her way through the chunks of stone that surround the clearing where she woke up.

She doesn't find any survivors, but she does spot a curious set of runes laid out around the gaping hole that were probably related to its creation. Senara doesn't know anything about sorcery (even though she is, apparently, the local expert on hellmouths), but the way the runes are carved deep into the bedrock could only be magic.

The shrieking from the pit grows louder and Senara flinches away from it. She's rather certain that there's nothing she can do here, that someone with a bit more expertise than she is needed to close this chasm. She doesn't know who called forth the hellmouth, but she knows that no good will come of it. Surely there is a wizard somewhere who will be able to reverse the magic that formed the sulfurous maw. All she has to do is find them.

Senara doesn't think she'll ever forget the deeply chiseled symbols embedded in the rock, but just in case, she takes the time to stand over each one and memorize its form. She works as quickly as she can, but even so, the hooting and hollering of what must only be _demons_ grows ever louder.

She has just finished memorizing the intricate curves of the final sygil when she hears the scrape of claws on stone for the first time. Senara has no wish to see the sort of beast that emerges from a hellmouth. She flees, tripping on loose rubble.

Senara doesn't remember who she is, where she is, or even how she came to be the only witness to the unspeakable horror of a gaping hellmouth. All she knows is that her name is Senara, and she has a world to save.

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes on nomenclature:
> 
> Amaranth is a kind of flower. The name comes from the Greek for "undying flower."
> 
> Amaranth's brother Caudat's name is derived from _Amaranthus caudatas_, the scientific name for Love-lies-dying.
> 
> Senara (sometimes pronounced with a "z") is a Cornish name meaning "dawn."


End file.
